Page:Tolstoy - Essays and Letters.djvu/347

 WHAT IS RELIGION? 82

But nothing of the kind is done : not only is the deception of false relig-ion not destroyed^ and the true one not preached, but, on the contrary, men depart further and further away from the possibility of accept- ing the truth.

The chief cause of people not doing what is so natural, necessary, and possible, is that men to-day, in consequence oif having lived long without religion, are so accustomed to establish and defend their exist- ence by violence, by bayonets, bullets, prisons, and gallows, that it seems to them as if such an arrange- ment of life were not only normal, but were the only one possible. Not only do those who profit by the existing order think so, but those even who suffer from it are so stupefied by the hypnotism exercised upon them, that they also consider violence to be the only means of securing good order in human society. Yet it is just this arrangement and maintenance of the commonweal by violence, that does most to hinder people from comprehending the causes of their suffer- ings, and consequently from being able to establish a true order.

The results of it are such as might be produced by a bad or malicious doctor who should drive a malignant eruption inwards, thereby cheating the sick man^ and making the disease worse and its cure impossible.

To people of the ruling classes, who enslave the masses and think and say : ' Apres nous le deluye,'* it seems very convenient by means of the army, the priesthood, the soldiers, and the police, as well as by threats of bayonets, bullets, prisons, workhouses, and gallows, to compel the enslaved people to remain in stupefaction and enslavement, and not to hinder the rulers from exploiting them. And the ruling men do this, calling it the maintenance of good order, but there is nothing that so hinders the establishment of a good social order as this does. In reality, far from bein§


 * Madame de Pompadour's remark, ' After me (us) the

dehige.'